Press Room

Tara Newman purposefully drives or walks past Janet Lehr and Ruth Vered's Madison Street home each day, to admire Larry Rivers' sculpture, "Legs," and she is not alone.

"This is art, no question," said Newman during a Sag Harbor Village Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Tuesday night. "Larry Rivers' was not just some local guy, and this is not just some sculpture, but the work of a world renowned artist."

Newman was one of scores of people who came out mostly in support, though some opposed, the longstanding application of Lehr and Vered to legalize the 16-foot sculpture by the Village of Sag Harbor's standards under its zoning code.

It was standing-room only Tuesday night in Sag Harbor as the village's zoning board of appeals met once again to consider the case of "Legs," the 16-foot-tall fiberglass sculpture created by Larry Rivers and owned by Janet Lehr and Vered, art collectors and partners in East Hampton's Vered Gallery.

It's anything but winter inside East Hampton's Vered Gallery, where bright colors, fanciful flowers and the sensual sea hold court. And did we mention the spectacular artists represented? Sometimes, it's best that venues not have a theme or a one-person presentation, and this particular exhibit has neither. Just the gallery's usual artists (and a few others this critic have never seen).

Fundamentally, it's a pleasure to see familiar artists with their familiar works and be reminded how really good they are. For example, three pieces use background and foreground particularly well. Consider Balcomb Greene's large "Meeting of Land and Sea," hanging in a dominant place. The image is overwhelming with its foregrounded boulders and backgrounded sky. There's nothing "dainty" about the setting, a trait we find common in many landscapes by local artists. Instead, it's big, bold and powerful, as Greene's work should be.

New York - People from all over the world in the past week have been calling two ladies at their home in the Hamptons to ask about their legs. Could they still be seen on the street, the callers wondered, or had those slender limbs now been removed from public display, in view of the scandal they had caused?

Scandalous? Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr want to keep the Larry Rivers-created statue on their property.

The legs in question are 4.6m high and were cast in fibreglass by the pioneering pop artist Larry Rivers, who lies in a cemetery a few miles from the home of Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr in Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Long Island. The ladies acquired them a few years ago and they now languidly stride across one exterior wall of their house, occasionally stopping the very little that passes down their traffic street.

Local officials have wrestled with the question of whether the legs were a ''structure'', and whether they conformed with bylaws. Matters came to a head, or at least to an upper thigh, last year when it was concluded that the legs were a structure and did not comply with building laws. In December, Lehr and Vered received a letter from the building inspector, giving them until today to remove the legs or face a summons for violating the village code governing ''accessory structures'' and perhaps a day in court.

Yesterday Lehr said that they would not comply with the order. The ladies and their legs would make a stand, for art and for their First Amendment rights. ''Our lawyer has applied to stay the decision,'' she said. '' We hope not to take them down.''

The women run an art gallery and live in a converted Baptist church.

''We had a 60ft expanse of white, what would you do with it?'' said Lehr, explaining why they erected the legs in 2008. ''It just looks so right. This is a work by a worldfamous artist. Anyone who thinks they are anything other than a sculpture is a ninny.''

The village council's attorney, Fred Thiele, disputes that designation, both for himself and for the legs. ''It's a structure, and a structure is a structure is a structure,'' he told The New York Times recently.

Dogs and kids make great photographic subjects, as attorney Ray Merritt found out when he left his big-city law practice to become a freelance author and gallery curator.

His 2000 book, A Thousand Hounds, was a surprise hit. The collection of photographs from artists such as Picasso and William Wegman sold 100,000 copies and left Merritt's publishers begging for something new. "They asked me to do cats and I said, 'I don't want to do cats but I'll do children,' " he said.

The result was the 2006 book Full of Grace, a collection of some of the most famous pictures of children ever produced. Merritt used the book as the basis for his new exhibition of the same name, which opened Jan. 24 and runs through March 18 at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in West Palm Beach.

Art is some people's religion, and religion is the inspiration for a great deal of art. In the current exhibit at Vered Gallery in East Hampton, the powerful intersection between these two worlds is evident. Dozens of artists from all over the world, from a wide spectrum of ages and religious backgrounds, have contributed to "A Stitch in Jewish Time, " but one thing that all the pieces have in common is the painstaking attention to every little detail that only true passion and devotion can inspire. The exhibit takes on an additional poignancy as we approach the high holy days of Rosh Hashana this week and Yom Kippur on October 8.

As the first art exhibition of its kind in the Hamptons, Art on the Edge at Vered Gallery represents a new environment dedicated to recognizing and supporting the significance of New Contemporary while showcasing the cutting edge talent that is filtering into our mainstream culture. The goal of the exhibition is to further advance the dialogue of new contemporary art movements, from their cultural roots to their current influence.

Breaking new ground in the art world is no easy feat. That being said, rock star curator Francesco LoCastro has never been one to let mere boundaries mandate the realms into which he brings his ambassadorship. The current exhibit in the Hamptons is just such an adventure. Art On The Edge - The New Contemporary, is now on exhibit through September at New York's premier fine art establishment, Vered Gallery. Follow us for a look at the exhibit.